Written by the famous french composer Serge Gainsbourg and released in 1965, ‘Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son’ is a song that has been chasing me around for about two weeks now. At first I thought of it as nothing more than a guilty pleasure, that I won’t feel the need to ever check again, but I was soon proved to be wrong. Now, I decided not to do anything other than come out of the closet and say that I absolutely love it. And it’s not exactly hard to see why: it’s a very carefully-arranged, prettily-sung tune, whose melody might just be one of catchiest ever recorded. France Gall’s charm does help a lot and what’s perhaps even more intriguing is her relationship with the song, particularly the fact she didn’t realize the lyrics’ second meaning at the time. It may be easier for the french-speaking folks to realize why is this, by simply taking a look at the metaphor-filled lyrics, and then imagine an 18-year old singing them. She basically identifies herself as a wax/sawdust/fashion doll, thus highlighting the puppet-puppeteer relationship between her (or any “fabricated” pop star, for that matter) and the song’s actual composer. It’s not hard to see why she distanced herself from the song soon after.
Anyway, I’m gonna post a link to the song below, and if you do listen to it, take its aforementioned catchiness and memorableness as a warning. This is certainly not a song that’ll leave your head after it’s over. In fact, the only “cure” I can think of, would be finding an even more catchy piece of music. Please, be sure to let me know if you do!
Categories: Song Reviews
TAKE 94 
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a
co-worker who had been doing a little research on this.
And he actually bought me dinner due to the fact that I found it for
him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thanks for the meal!
! But yeah, thanx for spending the time to talk about this topic here on your internet site.
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Haha, glad I could be of help. Thanks for commenting. 😀
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Nice article and à much nicer song!
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Nice article and à much nicer song!
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Thanks for commenting, Rico.
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